The sparse rooms, the doubts and suddenly, the success that takes everything: the film “Monsieur Aznavour”, in theaters in France on Wednesday then in Quebec in November, tells the grueling quest for glory of the singer of “La Bohème”, who became a star world late.
• Also read: Monica Bellucci will be in Montreal in November for the Cinemania festival
• Also read: “Aznavour 100 years”: a tribute concert to Charles Aznavour on May 22; on what would have been his 100th birthday
Died in 2018 at the age of 94, Charles Aznavour never hid how long the road was before sold-out concerts, duets with Sinatra and luxury cars.
“What are my disabilities? My voice, my size, my gestures, my lack of culture and education,” he listed in his autobiography.
This rise through headwinds irrigates the copious and very classic biopic that the singer Grand Corps Malade and his co-director Mehdi Idir are devoting, for their third production in tandem, to this son of Armenians born in Paris who sold 100 million albums and signed some monuments of French song (“Emmène-moi”, “Je m’voyais déjà”…).
From the first hesitant steps in the music hall to global glory, the Franco-Algerian actor Tahar Rahim composes a workaholic Aznavour, consumed by a desire for revenge on all those who did not believe in him.
“You can’t beat seventeen hours of work a day,” he says in the film.
The Caesarized actor of a “Prophète” himself gave of himself, transforming his gestures to bring Aznavour back to life, with whom the physical resemblance is however very distant.
The actor also had to undergo six months of intensive preparation, learning the piano and singing six to eight hours a week in order to perform Aznavour’s hits himself.
The first part of the film shows how Edith Piaf takes him under her wing while he struggles to make ends meet with his pianist accomplice Pierre Roche (Bastien Bouillon).
Played with panache by Marie-Julie Baup, the “Kid” will make Aznavour grow without sparing him, thus advising him to redo a nose that she considers unsightly.
Rather than a biopic sweeping – at the risk of skimming over – 90 years of a very rich existence, the two directors for a time considered the more radical choice of centering their film on the years of hardship alone, before giving up to show more academically its swing towards success.
The film, co-produced by Aznavour’s son-in-law, also paints the portrait of a singer cramped in his family life. “If I have to neglect everything around me then I will,” his character says.
Related News :